Bar Soap Recycling Device

Abstract

A bar soap recycling device comprises a container with an opening, a lid, a screen mesh with a handle, and a faucet. Used bar soaps and water are added to the container to form a soap solution. The screen mesh is used to smash the bar soaps into small pieces for a fast dissolving. The soap solution is dispensed through the faucet for hand wash or other cleaning uses.

Description

FIELD OF THE INVENTION

The present invention relates to a recycling device that can dissolve used bath soaps and dispense the resulting soap solution for cleaning uses. The recycling device comprises a container for holding the soap and the soap solution, a tool for smashing used bar soaps, and a faucet for dispensing the soap solution.

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION

People use bar soap in their daily life for hand washing, showering, or other cleaning uses. A bar soap is depleted into a small or tiny piece after being continuously used. Bar soap becomes slippery when it is wet. When it turns into a piece that is too small to be handled by hands, people tend to stop using it and put it away. In most cases, it is discarded. It is wasteful for throwing away this small piece of bar soap when its cleaning properties remain largely unchanged. This wasteful practice becomes significant when adding together the amount of all disposed bar soaps in millions of households for past many years. These used bar soaps should be saved for use if there is a convenient way for a user to handle it.

In fact, efforts have been made to collect soap drippings and pieces for reuse. In the U.S. Pat. No. 8,136,699, Giovanni Bianchini developed a recycler for recycling bar soap by passing the drippings and pieces of bar soaps in the dish into to a water reservoir to form a reusable cleaning solution. Liquid soap can be also added to the reservoir to constitute a soap mixture. Although leftover pieces of bar soap may be manually dropped into the soap container, the design of this invention mainly focuses on how to simultaneously capture the drippings or slivers split from bar soaps when they are used. This device may reserve almost the whole piece of bar soap for use in its life cycle. However, it does not help the soap solution to quickly reach a concentration that is sufficient for a cleaning use without adding additional soap to the solution. In addition, the device lacks of a means of breaking used bar soaps down to small pieces and quickly dissolving them into the solution.

Therefore, it is very much needed in the art to have a device that not only recycles used bar soaps for cleaning uses but also facilitates these soaps to dissolve into water and form a soap solution. These issues are addressed and resolved in the current invention.

BRIEF SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION

The current invention relates to a device that recycles used bar soaps for cleaning uses. The device comprises a container with an opening on the top, a lid, a screen mesh with a handle, and a faucet. The container holds used bar soaps and soap solution. The screen mesh is used as a smashing tool to break used bar soaps down to small pieces. The soap solution is dispensed through the faucet. In some embodiments of the invention, the device comprises a cubic container and a rectangular screen mesh. In some other embodiments of the invention, the container is cylinder-shaped with a round screen mesh. In some particular embodiments, the lid is a part separated from the handle of the screen mesh. In other particular embodiments, the lid is an integral part of the handle. In some more particular embodiments of the invention, the lid has a hole and a size bigger than the container's opening.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

FIG. 1 depicts a bar soap recycling device with a cubic container.

FIG. 2 depicts a bar soap recycling device with a cylindrical container.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF PREFERRED EMBODIMENTS

The present invention pertains to a recycling device for used bar soaps. The device comprises a container with an opening, a lid, a screen mesh with a handle, and a faucet. Bar soaps are dropped into the container with water. They start to dissolve into water and form a soap solution. If the size of a bar soap is too big or a fast dissolving is desired, the screen mesh can be used to smash the bar soap or breaking it down to smaller pieces. When the faucet is opened, the soap solution starts flowing out from the container for cleaning use.

One preferred embodiment of the bar soap recycling device is shown in FIG. 1. The soap solution and used bar soaps added to the system can also be seen in the figure. The device comprises a cubic container 1 with an opening 2′, a lid 2 on the top of the container 1, a screen mesh 3, and a faucet 7 installed at a lower position of the container 1.

The container 1 is transparent in this embodiment so that the level of the soap solution 8 or any undissolved bar soap 9 can be seen from the outside of the container. The container is made of plastic materials such as polyethylene polymer in order to be transparent. In other embodiments, the container 1 may also be made of other materials such as opaque plastics or metal. Although the container 1 is cube-shaped in FIG. 1, other shapes such as cylinder can also be used. The container may also be substantially cube-shaped or cylinder-shape. “Substantially cube-shaped” means that the cubic container's cross section is in either square or rectangular shape with right or curved angles. “Substantially cylinder-shaped” means the cylindrical container's cross section has a curved shape.

The container 1 is completely open on its top so that water and used bar soaps can be added into it through the opening 2′. A lid 2 with a circular hole 6 are shown in FIG. 1. The size of the lid 2 is bigger than the container's opening 2′ in order for it to stay on the top of container 1 without falling into the soap solution. The lid 2 can be made of plastics or metal materials. The circular hole 6 is created for allowing a user to smash the used bar soap 9 or mix the soap solution 8 with the screen mesh 3 and the handle 4 without opening the lid. The hole can be made in other shapes such as square as long as its size is big enough for the screen mesh handle 4 to be moved through the hole freely. In other embodiments, the lid does not have a hole. In order to use the screen mesh the lid must be removed from the top of the container.

In FIG. 1, the screen mesh 3 has the same rectangular shape as the cross section of the container 1. Shapes like circle or oval may be used in other embodiments. In this preferred embodiment the size of the screen mesh 3 is nearly the same as the cross section area of the container 1, but the internal walls of the container 1 does not cause obstruction when the screen mesh 3 is manually moved up and down to smash the used bar soap 9. In other embodiments, the size of the screen mesh may be smaller than the one shown in FIG. 1. However, it may not be smaller than one-fourth of the cross section area of the container. The screen mesh 3 is formed by grids that are made of plastic or metal materials. Grids are in parallelogram shape with each side no longer than one inch. As shown in FIG. 1, the screen mesh 3 is affixed to the screen mesh handle 4 by two rods 5. Two sides of the screen mesh 3 and one end of the handle 4 are connected together by these two rods 5. The affixation can be done either by screwing or welding. These rods 5 are made of plastics, stainless steel or metal with anti-corrosion coating. The size and shape of these rods may vary depending on the size of the device. In other embodiments, more than two rods may be used to connect together the screen mesh and the handle.

The screen mesh handle 4 is a straight piece of shaft. It is preferred to be in a circular shape. It is made of metal, wood, plastics, or other synthetic polymers. As shown in FIG. 1, the combination of the screen mesh 3, the screen mesh handle 4, and the rods 5 forms a smashing tool a′. A user may smash a bar soap by holding the handle 4 to press the screen mesh 3 on the soap continuously or strike it for multiple times. The handle 4 needs to be long enough so that the user can grasp it by hands from the outside of the container 1 when the screen mesh 3 reaches to the bottom of the container 1. When it is not in use, the smashing tool a′ may stay in the container for it can be taken out and put elsewhere.

The faucet 7 is installed at the lower position of the container 1. In other embodiments, it can also be installed at the bottom of the container 1. The faucet 7 in this embodiment is mainly made of plastics. The faucet 7 can be one of those commonly used water dispenser faucets available in the market such as a spring-loaded valve which allows liquid to flow out of the container when a lever connected to the valve is pressed. Other faucets such as those having a valve with a flowing channel that can be opened or shut down by turning the lever may also be used.

Another preferred embodiment of the bar soap recycling device is shown in FIG. 2. This recycling device comprises a cylindrical container 10, a screen mesh 13, and a water dispenser faucet 14. The screen mesh 13 has a round shape and a size smaller than the cross section area of the cylindrical container 10. The screen mesh may be in other shapes and has a same size as the cross section area of the container. The screen mesh 13 is affixed directly to the screen mesh handle 11 by screwing. A round plate 12 is glued to the handle 11 and becomes an integral part of the handle. The plate can also be attached to the handle by screwing in other embodiments. The round plate 12 is used as a lid with a size that is nearly as big as the opening 12′ of the container 10 so that it is able to cover the opening, but remains to move up and down without obstruction. The handle 11, the plate 12, and the screen mesh 13 form a smashing tool b′ for breaking the bar soap 16 down to small pieces. In other embodiments, the plate may be in other shapes such as square or oval to match the opening shape of the container. The plate may have a size bigger than the container's opening. In such case, the handle needs to be long enough so that the screen mesh is able to touch the bottom of the container when the plate stays on top of the container. The soap solution 15 flows out from the container 10 for cleaning uses when the faucet 14 is opened.

While this device is invented mainly for the purpose of recycling used bar soaps, it can also be used for liquid soap or combination of both types of soaps. Except the size and its limit specifically described above, the size of a bar soap recycling device and the size ratios among its parts may vary in other embodiments. It is to be understood that the above description and drawings are only used to illustrate two of the most preferred embodiments of the current invention. They are not intended to limit the scope of the present invention.

Claims

1. A bar soap recycling device comprising:

a container for holding soap and soap solution with an opening at its top;

a lid for covering the container's opening;

a screen mesh with a handle; and

a faucet installed at a lower position of the container.

2. A bar soap recycling device as described in claim 1 wherein the container is transparent.

3. A bar soap recycling device as described in claim 1 wherein the container is substantially cube-shaped.

4. A bar soap recycling device as described in claim 3 wherein the screen mesh has a rectangular shape.

5. A bar soap recycling device as described in claim 1 wherein the container is substantially cylinder-shaped.

6. A bar soap recycling device as described in claim 1 wherein the lid has a circular hole with a size that allows the handle of the screen mesh to pass through the hole.

7. A bar soap recycling device as described in claim 1 wherein the screen mesh is affixed directly to the handle.

8. A bar soap recycling device as described in claim 1 wherein the screen mesh is affixed to the handle through at least two rods.

9. A bar soap recycling device comprising:

a container for holding soap and soap solution with an opening at its top;

a screen mesh attached to a handle with a plate for covering the container's opening; and

a faucet installed at a lower position of the container.

10. A bar soap recycling device as described in claim 9 wherein the container is transparent.

11. A bar soap recycling device as described in claim 9 wherein the container is substantially cube-shaped.

12. A bar soap recycling device as described in claim 9 wherein the container is substantially cylinder-shaped.

13. A bar soap recycling device as described in claim 12 wherein the screen mesh has a round shape and a size smaller than the cross section area of the container.

14. A bar soap recycling device as described in claim 9 wherein the screen mesh is affixed directly to the handle.

15. A bar soap recycling device as described in claim 9 wherein the screen mesh is affixed to the handle through at least two rods.